I get a bit of stick for being a Genesis fan, mainly because people jumped on the anti Phil Collins bandwagon in the early-nineties and never got off!

Most people can’t tell the difference between Genesis music and Phil’s tracks, probably because it’s him singing. But there is! The last few albums have all been written through collaboration, Phil, Mike Rutherford and Tony Banks simply jamming together and seeing what results.

Three Sides Live was the first album I ever bought back in 1986. It was a double album and aged 15 I was very pleased I was getting more for my well-earned pocket money 🙂

Since then I’ve followed their progress through the nineties to their tour last year. It was a real surprise that they’d decided to get back together. Cynics may think it was all about money but I couldn’t give a monkeys. I’d last seen Phil live in Phoenix, Arizona in 2004. He only played one gig in London on that tour and the tickets sold out in minutes. Going for £000’s on eBay I figured it’d be cheaper to stay with friends in Scottsdale and pay dollar prices for a ticket, than it would be to watch him on home ground.

One personal story happened in 1990. I found out where Phil’s management offices were in London and wrote to him asking for a summer job on the “We Can’t Dance” world tour. I was at Exeter University at the time doing a degree in Drama. His PA, Annie Callingham wrote back saying it wouldn’t be possible and that the band outsourced their crew to production companies.

Somehow I had the balls to write back to Annie and say I appreciated her response but wanted to hear back from the man himself.

So imagine my surprise when a letter turned up thanking me for my reply and explaining that although Phil was touring in America, he’d taken the time to write a handwritten note and faxed it thorough to his offices. The envelope contained the fax. It was his handwriting because he writes all his album covers by hand.

It said something like:

“Dear Mel, Thanks for your interest in working on the Genesis tour but we hire specialist production companies to help at our concerts so don’t actually employ anyone ourselves. I realise this isn’t exactly what you want to hear, but thanks for your interest in helping us and good luck with your course. Cheers Phil Collins”

Like an idiot, I lost the fax when I was taking it to show someone at a house party! But it was a nice touch.

Fast forward to last summer and I got a load of tickets to see them at Twickenham. Having seen them in 2002 at Knebworth along with 120k other people, I knew this would probably be the last time to catch them together again.

We weren’t disappointed!

Masters of the live show, they played for well over two hours including a ton of really old stuff from the Peter Gabriel days. Very cool actually, because they didn’t have a new album to promote they could play what they like.

I come back after 2 weeks in the US and South West Trains have stuck a ticket machine on my station at North Sheen. Up until recently it was one of the ONLY stations on the line without a self-serve option….great news!